A Kodak Moment or, What Business Are You In?

For over 100 years, Kodak dominated the photographic scene in North America.

At one point, the filmmaker commanded an 89 percent market share of photographic film sales in the U.S.  

Its slogan, a “Kodak moment,” became part of the common lexicon.

But in 2012, Kodak went bankrupt.

Why?

The simple answer is digital photography—nobody needed film anymore But that was just part of the reason.

The main reason was that it forgot what business it was in.

Since Kodak had been so successful selling film for so many years, it made the mistake of thinking it was in the film business.

It wasn’t.

The business Kodak was really in was the memory and image preservation business.

Film was just the way people preserved their memories and made images until the digital revolution took over.

By not remembering what business it was in, Kodak was steamrolled by the digital revolution.

It didn’t have to be this way.

Few people know it, but it was a Kodak employee Steve Sasson who came up with the idea of digitial photography—in 1975.

In 1989 he built the first workable digital camera. Kodak rejected his invention, fearful it would destroy film sales.

As Sasson told the New York Times: “When we built that camera, the argument was over. It was just a matter of time, and yet Kodak didn’t really embrace any of it. That camera never saw the light of day.”

If Kodak had remembered what business it was in, it could have embraced Sasson’s new camera and ridden the digital wave into the future.

But it didn’t. Kodak was held hostage to what was working for it at that time—film—instead of what would work down the road.

As a result, Kodak missed it’s moment—the moment of a lifetime.

What does the mean for communicators?

As communicators, we can also forget what business we are in. If we have a magazine or newsletter, we can think we are in the publication business.

Since all of our organizations have websites and Facebook and Twitter accounts, we can think we are in the website or social media business.

We aren’t. We are in the information sharing and content creation business.

How that information is shared involves magazines, newsletters, websites and social media. But those are just the channels we use to reach our audiences—and they can change.

This is the challenge facing newspapers and denominational publications today; some of them are stuck because they think that is their business. They can’t imagine their lives without their paper products.

But like photographic film, paper as a main means of sharing information will fade away one day, too.

The trick is to be nimble and flexible, adapting to new ways of sharing information as they come along—not held hostage to what has worked in the past.

Otherwise you might have a Kodak moment—the kind of moment that lasts forever, but in a bad way. 

2016 State of the News Media

The annual State of the News Media report is out, and the main take-away is social media and mobile.

The report, published by Pew Research Center, found that 62 percent of American adults get news on social media, with 66 percent of Facebook users getting their news there.

As for how they find it, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram users are more likely to get their news online mostly by chance, when they are online doing other things. 

For daily newspapers in the U.S., circulation fell 7 percent from 2014 to 2015, and newspaper ad revenue fell 8 percent over the same period. 

Most of that revenue is going digital, with the majority of the money going to Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft and Twitter.

When it comes to how people access news from traditional media, it's digital. A study by Pew of 110 newspapers, magazines, national TV organizations and digital-only publishers found that 99 had more unique visitors to their mobile sites than their desktop sites.

Other findings from the report:

There are now more Americans working for online-only outlets than newspapers.

Prime time viewership for cable news grew in 2015 for the first time in three years, while Network TV news (ABC, NBC, CBS), grew by one percent. The increase was attributed to the wild presidential campaign. 

Local television news lost viewers in every time slot—morning, supper and evening. The report also says that their audiences tend to be older.

Podcasting continues to grow, with 21 percent of Americans age 12 and older saying they listened to a podcast in the past month.

For radio, 54 percent of all listening occurs on FM.

For news magazines, circulation continues to shift from print to digital.

What does this mean for non-profits? It is confirmation that the conversation has moved online, and that mobile is becoming a main way to reach people.

It also means that non-profits will need to devote more time to figuring out the best ways to use digital channels, and keep up with trends and changes in Facebook's preferences (currently it's video).

At a time when groups are hard-pressed just to meet the budget, that is a tough challenge.

There is so much more in the full report. Click here to read it.

For a precis of the report, go to Nieman Lab.  

Image above from the Pew Research Center. 

The Challenging Future of Denominational NGOs

Sometimes I think there are only two types of denominational NGOs today: Those that are in trouble, and those that will be. 

Earlier this year I interviewed fundraisers and some executive directors from 14 Canadian denominational NGOs—international relief and development agencies that are owned by church bodies like the Presbyterians, Anglicans, Adventists, Baptists and others.

All of them are facing fundraising challenges. 

For some, the challenges are severe. For others, not so much right now—but they likely will be in the future.

What are those challenges? 

An aging donor base. Many Canadian churches are greying. As churches age, the best givers—older people—are dying. The next generation is not nearly as generous or as loyal in their giving. 

Shrinking donor base. Along with growing older, many churches are getting smaller—the pool of donors is declining. The decline is more precipitous for the mainline churches, but even some evangelical churches are experiencing a downturn in attendance.  

The decline is felt in all age groups, but most among younger adults. At the same time, there is a growing loss of longtime members—a group known as the “dones.”  

These are people who have gone to church all their lives, but now, in the 60s and older, feel there are better ways to spend a Sunday morning.

Declining denominational loyalty. The older generation was loyal to denominational agencies. Church-related NGOs would only have to win them once; after that, their support could be counted on.

Younger donors are different. They may be as generous as their elders, but they spread it around to more organizations. They are also more cause-driven; something attracts them this month, something different appeals to them a few months from now. They are not necessarily loyal to one group.

What this means for denominational NGOs is that they can’t assume that because someone is Anglican (or Mennonite or United Church or Adventist) they will support their denominational agencies. They will give to the best and most compelling offers, wherever they come from.  

Falling donations through churches. When I started in this sector in the early 1980s, all we needed to do was send a letter to supporting churches once or twice a year and the money would come back.

Those days are gone.

Today it’s all about raising money from individuals; no more relying on pastors and priests to do our work for us—for free.

Not only that, many churches once had their denominational NGOs in their budgets; a portion of general giving was always sent to the agency, along with any special appeals.

That too is going, or gone. When a church has trouble paying the pastor’s salary or fixing the roof, the first thing to go is giving from the budget to external groups. 

What this means for denominational NGOs is that they have to be more proactive and marketing-oriented. They need to hire more people and spend more money on fundraising. 

Changing attendance patterns. Twenty-five or 30 years ago, it you asked someone if they went to church regularly they would assume you meant weekly. 

Today many churchgoers are what University of Lethbridge sociologist Reg Bibby coined as “monthly plus”—people who attend once, maybe twice, a month.

What this means for denominational NGOs is that even if they are successful in getting to preach on a Sunday morning, or hold a special giving Sunday, they will reach only part of the congregation. 

Internal competition for dollars within denominations. For a long time, denominations exhorted congregations to get involved in the community. The good news is that churches took the message to heart. The bad news is these new ministries cost money—money that now stays home.

The most recent example of this is Syrian refugee sponsorship. Hundreds (maybe thousands) of churches across Canada applied to sponsor a family (or two). It costs $30,000 to $50,000 to sponsor a family for a year—money that will stay home in 2016.

This is a good cause, to be sure, but every fundraiser I spoke to expects to receive less money from their churches this year because of it.

Then there are the special international projects supported by churches—how many sponsor an orphanage, clinic or school, or send their youth on a missions or service trip?

It’s always easier to raise funds for ministries close to hand, or for youth in the church—again, money that doesn’t make it to the denominational NGO.

Another source of internal competition is within denominations themselves. 

The denominational NGO may need funds for a program in the developing world, but so does the missions department and the youth department and the denomination’s administration itself (paying for the Bishop’s or moderator’s salary and the rent).  

There can be a fierce debate within a denomination about who can mail out an appeal and when and how many times. 

If the denominational NGO mailed out an appeal once already this year, it doesn’t matter how successful it was or how much It appealed to donors—it won’t get another chance, even if a golden opportunity to raise more money comes along. It’s someone else’s turn.

Growing external competition. World Vision is still the biggest church-related NGO in Canada. But since 2010 their fundraising is down $24 million ($283 million to $262 million.) 

People with inside knowledge at World Vision tell me the agency is busy developing very ambitious strategies to reclaim those missing dollars and donors.  

What does this mean for denominational NGOs? 

While they are required to play by the internal rules of when they can issue appeals, or how often they can mail to churches, external parachurch organizations like World Vision, Samaritan’s Purse and Compassion Canada (groups that are independent of denominations), are unburdened by such rules.  

They can contact a denomination’s churches and its members whenever and however they please—and they do. 

Speaking of Samaritan’s Purse and Compassion Canada, these two growing parachurch NGOs are also actively fundraising from Canadian churches. 

From 2010-14 Compassion Canada grew from $44 million in donations to $59 million. In the same time period, Samaritan’s Purse grew from $43 million to $51 million.

Growing Secularism. When a business sees its customer base dry up, it usually goes out to look for new ones. Church groups that watch their numbers shrink may want to do the same thing—grow their market. In church circles, that is called evangelism.

The problem today is that growing numbers of Canadians have no interest in the church or religion in general. 

In his recent book, The Meaning of Sunday: The Practice of Belief in a Secular Age, Joel Thiessen of Ambrose University notes that “‘demand’ for things that religious groups offer is not as strong as most assume. Regardless of what religious groups do to their ‘supply’ of religion (e.g. more relevant preaching, more and different programs, or contemporary music), few Canadians are likely to respond with greater levels of church attendance.

He notes that the fastest growing “religious” group in Canada are the “nones”—those who say they have no religious affiliation. 

This group now represents 24% of Canadian adults and 32% of Canadian teens, and it continues to grow.

What about churches or denominations that claim to be growing? The reality is that almost none of the growth is from people who have no church background.

A recent study by two evangelical authors, Sam Reimer and Michael Wilkinson, has confirmed what Reg Bibby said 35 years ago: 90% of church growth is people from other churches.

In other words, if a church is growing it is likely doing so at the expense of churches that are shrinking—they are just shuffling the same pool of people from one church to another, not actually growing the total number of religious givers.

This all sounds like so much bad news. 

I don’t mean to suggest that the task is impossible. Religious Canadians are generous, and they like to respond to needs in the world. Staff at denominational NGOs are dedicated and devoted to their tasks. And denominational NGOs have faced tough times before, and got through them somehow.

But the road may be steeper this time, the future more uncertain. With their fortunes tied to the success or failure of the churches that own them, many denominational NGOs will struggle. Not all may survive.

So: what to do? That’s a topic for another post.

When it Comes to Media Coverage of Drowned Refugees or Dead Gorillas, We Have Met The Enemy And He Is Us

There’s an old black joke in the NGO world that goes like this: Never hold your famine or natural disaster in summer. North Americans are on vacation and aren’t paying attention.

It’s a harsh statement, but there’s a measure of truth in it. It’s hard to think about hungry people or refugees when we’re off to the beach.

Same goes for when a child falls into a gorilla enclosure at the zoo—especially if there is good video.

A lot has been said lately about how the drowning deaths of hundreds of people last week got almost no attention, but the gorilla and child dominated the media.

This is an old and hard truth about the media, and about the interests of North Americans—about us.

Fact is, a story like the one at the Cincinnati zoo will always trump a tragedy like the drowning of refugees, for several reasons.

One is that the war in Syria is now in its sixth year. It’s hard to keep anyone’s attention for that long.

Second is one person in danger versus thousands. It isn’t easy to wrap our minds around large numbers. We can much more easily relate to one child in danger closer to home.

Familiarity and proximity is a third reason. We all go to zoos like the one in Cincinnati, and the same thing could happen to us. (Although we hope not.)

But a main reason is that the media knows we care more about people who are closer to us and more like us.

It’s a normal human reaction—and it’s something the media has known this for a long time. (Even before the Web allowed them to know exactly what people clicked on and read.) 

In the 1960s, reporters at a major U.S. network put it more cynically with what they called the “Racial Equivalence Scale.”

The scale showed the minimum number of people who had to die in plane crashes in different countries before the crash equalled the death of one person closer to home.

According to the scale, “one hundred Czechs was equal to 43 Frenchmen, and the Paraguayans were at the bottom.”

(BBC journalists had a similar scale, in which “one thousand wogs, 50 frogs and one Briton” were equivalent.)

In other words, the media is only giving us what they know we want to pay attention to—something they know because we tell them every day by what we click on when we visit their websites.

And when it’s a contest between dead refugees, a dead rock star, or a dead gorilla, you know who is going to win.

None of this diminishes the tragic deaths of the refugees who drowned trying to get to Europe. But it does put it in perspective.

And it reminds us, in the words of the wise sage Pogo, that when it comes to what we see in the media, “we have met the enemy, and he is us.”

For more on this topic, see Why So Much News Coverage of Paris, but not Beirut? Maybe it's Time to Look in the Mirror and Why Your Brain Wants To Help One Person, But Not Millions, both on this blog.

Facebook is Eating the World

"Facebook is Eating the World."

That was the title of a an article in Columbia Journalism Review that went viral in March.

In, author Emily Bell noted that "something really dramatic is happening to our media landscape, the public sphere, and our journalism industry . . . our news ecosystem has changed more dramatically in the past five years than perhaps at any time in the past five hundred."

And what is that change? "Social media hasn’t just swallowed journalism, it has swallowed everything," she writes.

"It has swallowed political campaigns, banking systems, personal histories, the leisure industry, retail, even government and security. The phone in our pocket is our portal to the world."

And what are the implications? She notes two things.

First, news publishers have lost control over distribution. Second, "the inevitable outcome of this is the increase in power of social media companies."

And what is behind this change? The mobile revolution.

"Because of the revolution in mobile, the amount of time we spend online, the number of things we do online, and the attention we spend on platforms has exploded," she writes.

And since the majority of American adults are Facebook users, that is also where they now get their news.

Bell cites a report from the Pew Research Center which found that around 40 percent of American adults today  consider Facebook a source of news.

This is both good and bad for the media, she says. On the one hand, it provides new opportunities to distribute content.

On the other hand, it  narrows the choices the media has to share that content, and requires them to surrender control to businesses like Facebook--as are well all.

"With billions of users and hundreds of thousands of articles, pictures, and videos arriving online every day, social platforms have to employ algorithms to try and sort through the important and recent and popular and decide who ought to see what," she says.

"And we have no option but to trust them to do this."

As Bell points out, we have little or no insight into how each company (Facebook or Google) is sorting its news.

"If Facebook decides, for instance, that video stories will do better than text stories, we cannot know that unless they tell us or unless we observe it."

And yet, Bell sees no way around it.

"It seems most likely that the next wave of news media companies will be fashioned around a studio model of managing different stories, talents, and products across a vast range of devices and platforms," she writes.

"As this shift happens, posting journalism directly to Facebook or other platforms will become the rule rather than the exception. Even maintaining a website could be abandoned in favor of hyperdistribution."

What does this mean for non-profits?

Although we have spent a lot of time and energy working on our websites, the conversation is moving to social media.

Like for the media, we need to figure out ways to use social media to share our messages.

Unlike the media, however, we lack the resources to make much of an impact on things like Facebook. 

Which makes me wonder: Is this an opportunity for like-minded groups to pool their resources to try to make a bigger splash in social media?

What if we agreed to share one Facebook aggregator page on a subject like poverty or water or hunger? A page that was as up-to-date and as technologically sophisticated as possible?

Maybe by pooling our resources and expertise we can create enough energy to stay up on the changes and provide content in a way that works well with Facebook, and with the people who want to learn more about the work we do.

It's a big challenge. But unless we figure out a way to play this game, like the media we will find ourselves sidelined and voiceless--just like the poor and hungry and vulnerable people we are trying to speak for.

What Can NGOs Learn from the Great Canadian Newspaper War?

In 1998, Canada’s major newspapers went to war.

That was the year the National Post was launched, sparking a circulation battle with the Globe and Mail and the Star in Toronto.

It was a fierce fight. But instead of going to war against each other, they should have been focusing on a common enemy: The Internet.

That's the view of John Stackhouse, author of the new book Mass Disruption: Thirty Years on the Front Lines of the Media Revolution, 

In a chapter in the book titled, appropriately, “The Wrong War,” Stackhouse notes that the real fight was against Google and the other digital upstarts that aggregated and, later, created news and other content.

It’s not like newspapers weren’t warned about their real enemy. 

As early as 1992, Bob Kaiser of the Washington Post wrote about a visit to Apple and what he saw as the danger to newspapers of the coming digital world.

In a memo, Kaiser wrote that the Post needed to do two things immediately: Create electronic classifieds and publish an electronic edition.

“Both ideas,” Stackhouse writes, “were ignored.”

So why did newspapers fail to react and respond to this new enemy?

For one thing, life was pretty good for newspapers in the 1990s. They were one of the main ways people got news, and how advertisers reached the public. They were making lots of money.

For another, they had invested heavily in buildings, presses, shipping departments and work forces.

The result? When the online world took off, both for news and advertising, newspapers were left behind.

It didn't matter which newspaper won the printed circulation war; the battle was already lost as subscribers and advertisers drifted away to the new digital world.

What does this have to do with the international relief & development sector? 

Like newspapers in the 1990s, I think the sector is fighting the wrong war.

Instead of focusing on the big challenge of how to grab attention in this noisy world or expand the total number of Canadians who support relief and development, groups are fixated on how to address their own funding and communication challenges.

This is understandable; there are programs to be supported and staff to be paid.

The problem is we are fighting against each other, not against public indifference in general.

Of course, being non-profits, we don’t talk that way. We don’t speak about competing with other organizations.

But that is exactly what we are doing.

Worse, instead of expanding the overall donation pie, we are fighting for the attention and money of a small, and decreasing, number of givers.

According to a report in The Philanthropist, only about eight percent of total charitable giving in Canada goes for international purposes (very broadly defined).

And who is giving those funds? According to other research from the Canadian Centre for Philanthropy, the typical international donor is more likely to be older and to cite religious motivations for donating.

Since religious attendance in Canada is declining, especially among mainline churches, and since many donors are getting older, this should give all international NGOs pause. 

But instead of recognizing there is a problem, groups are busy using scarce resources to develop new and ambitious marketing and fundraising plans to either get traditional donors to give more, or to reach outside their donor base—to steal someone else's donor.

Instead of combining our efforts to make a larger splash in this noisy world of communications, most of our efforts hardly raise a peep outside our own little worlds.

In the end, like newspapers, we could find all these efforts are for nothing. We might hang on a little longer, but ultimately be defeated in the larger battle against public indifference. 

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that groups abandon their unique identities, missions or audiences.

I’m only suggesting that this might be a good time to come together to talk about creative ways to unite for a common cause and purpose—a United Way of international relief and development.

One group that is trying to do something like this is the Humanitarian Coalition, which is sponsoring the World Refugee Day campaign (June 20). 

Through it, the Coalition is trying to bring together NGOs to focus on the theme of refugees—with over 60 million displaced people in the world today, it is a huge crisis.

Maybe this experiment will work, maybe it won't. Or maybe it will spark new ideas for working together, instead of fighting the wrong war.

Thumb-Stopping Online Content and Other Thoughts About the Digital Revolution from the Head of CBC Digital News

One of the guest presenters at the April 27-29 Canadian Church Press convention was Brodie Fenlon, Senior Director for Digital News at the CBC. 

In a wide-ranging presentation, he covered a number of topics about the digital revolution overtaking legacy media—print and broadcast.

A summary of his remarks is below.

Is the content on your Facebook page “thumb-stopping”?

That’s the question Brodie Fenlon, Senior Director of CBC Digital News, asked at the April 27-29 Canadian Church Press convention in Toronto.

“You have to stop the thumb,” he said of the way most people get information today—on their phones.

“It has to be thumb-stopping.”

Good content, he went on to say, “is no good if doesn’t work on a phone.”

The New Legacy Media—Digital

Fenlon also noted that while we tend to view newspapers as a “legacy” media that the Internet disrupted, the Internet, or digital, itself has a legacy that has been disrupted.

In the case of the Internet, it has moved from the Web and desktop to mobile—that’s how most people access information today.

He noted that no communications technology has been adopted as quickly as the phone, with over 90% of people 18-34 now owning one.

“The war is on to win the audience on this thing,” he stated. “Over the next few years, the battle is to be one or lost on the smartphone.”

He said that already 63% of CBC’s audience comes to its website via a mobile device.

The CBC “still has a huge desktop audience, but future growth is phone,” he said, adding that websites and home pages are becoming legacy media themselves.

At the CBC, he said, “we treat our Facebook page like our website.”

And what’s on that CBC Facebook page?  Stories. “The thing the audience lands on is the story page,” he said.

Facebook: Eating the World

As for where users go on their phones, the answer, he said, is Facebook.

And it’s not only older people on Facebook, he said, dismissing a commonly-held notion.

90% of millennials use Facebook, he said, with YouTube, Snapchat and Instagram following in second, third and fourth place.

And, as he noted, that’s also where many people get their news—not from traditional news sources.

It’s the same for the next demographic, 35-54 year-olds—Facebook is first for them, too, followed by YouTube.

Snapchat is way back for that demographic, not surprisingly.

“Facebook is eating the world,” he said, quoting the title of the much-talked-about article by Emily Bell. 

“If you are going to win mobile, then you have to think social, and you have to start with Facebook,” he stated.

“If you would be stuck on an island can could only choose one social media platform, Facebook would be it,” he said—quickly adding that’s for right now.

“Who knows what I might say in a month,” he said.

Share and Share Alike

And when it comes to Facebook, the goal is to get people not just to like, but to share.

With that in mind, groups need to make it easy for people to share.

“Share buttons matter,” he said, and so do headlines and images.

The problem is that designers design Facebook posts on desktop computers, he said. They need to check the posts later to make sure they display the way they intended.

When it comes to headlines, they need to grab and hold attention.

On websites, it’s important to include key words like names of people, places, organizations or groups. But on Facebook, emotion is vital if you are going to get thumbs to stop.

“Headlines on websites are for robots,” he said. “You need different headlines for social media. You need to speak to the heart on social media, not to the robots.”

This means the sometimes there needs to be two different headlines and images—one for the website, and the other for Facebook.

Need for Speed

Speed is also important on mobile, he said.

According to Fenlon, studies show that 47% of people expect a site to load in two seconds or less. If it takes longer, 40% say they will leave.

What this means is that the websites—especially for mobile—need to be streamlined.

This is the reasoning behind Facebook’s Instant Articles, and Google AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages).

With Instant Articles, material loads faster, but organizations have to give it to Facebook—something very controversial for news organizations..

“This means we are building an audience for Facebook,” Fenlon said, “but the user experience is better.”

Facebook Leaning to Video

As for Facebook itself, he noted that it has once again changed it algorithms and now it is favouring video.

But, he noted, the kind of video that works on TV “won’t work on Facebook.”

On TV, video segments “are too long, they build-up to the moment.”

Facebook video, he said, has to be short and get right to the point.

Something new for them now is putting text over the video, so people can read what is being said.

“People usually use their mobile devices with the sound off,” so adding text helps to catch attention.

As for length, shorter is always better, he said.

The ideal length of a Facebook video is no longer than 90 seconds. YouTube hosts longer videos, “but the longer you go the better it has to be. If you are going to ask for two, three or four minutes of my time, it has better be worth it.”

What about Twitter?

Twitter is also important, he said, but it doesn’t reach the mass audience of Facebook.

Twitter users, he said, tend to be highly engaged audience, with a lot of journalists and a lot of influencers on that platform.

Facebook Worries and Paywalls

Fenlon admitted there are worrying things about the dominance of Facebook.

Its algorithm isn’t Canadian, he said, and it doesn’t prioritize Canadian news.

Instead, it “favours what your friends like, what you like.”

But that is also its genius, and why people spend so much time on it, he added.

“Facebook is a great experience—that’s why people spend time there,” he said. “You can rage against that, or try to build your own brand and presence in that space.”

As for the future, “we are In this weird grey zone, not sure where it is going,” he said of the Web and social media.

One place he is sure it is not going is towards paywalls and people paying for content online.

“I’m not an expert on monetizing content, but a paywall is a tough sell,” he said. “It only works for biggest players.”

As for the younger generation, they “will not pay,” he stated, referencing a study that showed that 70% said they will never pay for news.

Subscribing to things, he noted, is something people over 50 are used to doing—not the younger generation.

The Future of TV News

As for traditional CBC TV news, “we will see real withdrawl from local news,” he said.

The idea of the supper hour or evening news—what is called appointment viewing—is something only older people do. Younger people don’t consume news that way.

They have no interest in a traditional hour-long format, where they wait until something they are interested in comes up, he shared.

The supper and evening news is “a relic,” he stated. “We have to re-think the newscast. Instead of telling people what happened today, we need to tell them why it matters, and what will happen tomorrow as a result.”

This will involve a psychological change for broadcasters, he added.

Today it is video first—the needs of TV. In the near future, it will be digital first, and TV second.

“We are still trying to republish TV stuff to digital,” he said. “We need to do digital first, then go to TV.”